This business of charging extra for the on-line system when the phone-in system is free, doesn’t make sense.
First of all the phone-in system costs as much to maintain as the on-line system. In fact, it may even cost more because they have to have a sufficient number of incoming phone lines to prevent excessive busy signals. And each addition phone line is a monthly expense and each phone line requires addition hardware and maintenance fees to support it.
On the other hand, the on-line system requires a single high speed connection which is already in place. And as the population of TV grows, it behooves them to encourage the use of on-line system, not discourage its use by charging extra for it and raising the fee to boot.
They’re shooting themselves in the foot on this one.
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